Speaking to Sky News on Friday (17 June), Scully highlighted the possibility for part-time workers to be "more productive".
His comments came as Gatwick announced it is reducing the number of daily flights during its summer period to help cope with workforce shortages and avoid cancellations.
"When you start up anything almost from scratch, because there were very few flights going through Heathrow at some points, it takes time to bring the staff back in," Scully said.
"Our ministers have been trying to work with Heathrow, Gatwick and the other airport operators. We do want them to do more. We want to make sure in a tight labour market there are enough people to staff the roles there and we will continue to work with them."
Scully said there are a "record" 1.3 million vacancies across the country in all manner of sectors. "But there are also people who have recalibrated what they want to do when they were on furlough," he continued.
"We want to make sure that those people that are not necessarily working full-time, through Universal Credit we can get them back in to work to be more productive, if that suits them, and obviously match them up with the sectors where there are those vacancies.
"I’m not talking about going out forcing people to do anything, but we just want to make sure that they’re matched up properly so that it’s just that those people who can work longer – that want to work longer – can do."
Meanwhile, responding to aviation minister Robert Court’s statement about travel disruption, Balpa general secretary Martin Chalk said: "The implication that this was solely the fault of the industry is the minister forgetting the government only removed the last of the restrictions in mid-March, and even then had been so chaotic in setting and removing them that they had failed to provide the certainty needed for aviation industry planning.
"The government has set a 10 point plan, which was criticised at the time as headlines for the right direction but with no substance.
"Despite this widespread comment, there is still no industry-wide Aviation Council that includes professional staff representatives such as Balpa to support the government in recreating the right environment for a financial, social and environmentally-sustainable UK air transport sector to serve a successful global Britain."
